


Vulnus

by MccoyKat



Series: Violence Inherent in the System [3]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: CIA, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, I can't even follow my own bloody timelines, Kid Fic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MccoyKat/pseuds/MccoyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moira drags Erik from the wreckage.</p><p>Part of a series but chronologically the first part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vulnus

**Author's Note:**

> I can't keep track of my own bloody timelines. So don't expect me to keep track of the comic's.

When Moira McTaggart pulled out the boy from the wreckage, she almost lost herself to the nausea. The eyes were closed, thankfully. The hair was buzzed close enough to his skull that she could see the cuts and scabs on his head.

Shaw had been testing on a _child_. They’d known that he’d been up to some pretty disgusting things. But the government had been too wrapped up in the current issue of mutant affairs. They didn't notice that one of the government’s own top ranked had been doing such hideous crimes. Human trafficking, weapons deals, drugs. It was disgusting.

They’d just gone in to talk to Shaw. His compound in the middle of nowhere. Half way through the interview, the ground had started to shake. An earthquake wasn’t unheard of in Southern California, yet this one seemed different. Moira had insisted her team leave the building just in time to watch it collapse. Also just in time to notice the ground wasn’t shaking anywhere else. Shaw and his company had disappeared during the commotion.

They’d been all set to leave when Moira had seen a hand poking out of the rubble.

Moira wasn’t naive. She was a CIA agent, that had been trained out of her. She knew that whatever life the kid had just been freed of was worse than anything that she’d be able to imagine.

But then the kid took a giant, shuddering gasp.

He was alive. Somehow. Thousands of pounds of metal had been pulled down on top of him when Shaw had destroyed his facility. Yet the kid had survived.

“I need a medic!” She called in the direction of the rest of her team.

They looked at the kid, who was still unconscious, and still breathing. He didn’t seem to worse for the wear from the collapse of the building. But he had scrapes and sores all over his body from other things. He was malnourished. He was dehydrated, and the dilation of his pupils meant that he was drugged up some something.

They took him back to Moira's office building. Hospitals were easy to break into if you knew how. And Shaw would know how. He’d gone to lengths to makes sure that this boy hadn’t been found, hiding him so deeply in the middle of nowhere. They needed to protect him.

 

***

 

“ _Don’t touch me!_ ”

Moira got called in when the kid had woken up, apparently he was a fairly high level mutant. No one had been able to talk him down in the hour and a half he’d been awake, because he wouldn’t let anyone near him.

“ _No! Stop! Nein!”_

His shrieks were echoing down the hall. His voice was grating, and Moira would be lying if she said that it wasn’t making her heart ache. He was just a kid.

“Seriously, this will just help you calm down so you can talk to us, alright?”

Moira could now hear the voice of one of the doctors who had been called in. There was a the sound of groaning steel. Moira peeked her head into the room just in time to see the bed form itself into a protective cage around the boy. He was curled up in the middle of the metal frame, his head in his arms. The doctor now had the rest of the metal in the room angled at him. As she watched, the objects melted and reformed into points.

She couldn’t stop the gasp of surprise.

The kid turned to face her, his eyes too bright and wide. They were filled with tears.

 _“Schmutzigen menschen,"_ he growled, his voice cracking painfully.

Suddenly Moira found herself facing the point of what used to be a wire directed at her throat.

Then she was shoved out of the way by another doctor, this one Moira recognized.

“Dr. Li I really don’t think that-”

The doctor just shushed her, a potted plant in hand. And she walked straight towards the child hunched behind the bed.

“Hey.” Dr. Li started, her voice gentle, “Hey. Look at me, alright? I know, this is scary. You don’t know us, but we’re trying to help. You’re not alone.”

“ _You’re human. I am alone.”_

The kids voice was cracking, and there were tears running down his face. The metal was now trained on all three adults in the room.  Moira couldn’t help but wonder exactly how powerful this kid was.

“Nonono. Sh. I’m not lying to you, watch.”

Moira watched as well, as the plant the doctor was holding started to grow in a perfect spiral.

“Like I said, not alone.”

The kid hiccuped, but moved the metal away from the doctor on the floor.

“Agent McTaggart,” Dr. Li said gently, but there was steel in her voice “I suggest you and Dr. Cox leave now.”

She turned her attention back to the child, “They’re going, if you’ll let them. They aren’t going to hurt you, and neither will I. We just need to make sure that you’re alright. Can you unwrap the bed for me? I need to check you out, I won’t...”

The metal fell to the floor and the kid let out another sob. Moira made sure Dr. Cox had left before she shut the door firmly behind her.

 

***

 

“His name is Erik. He’s twelve years old. He’s terrified, and he’s going to go into withdrawal in about four hours... I suggest we move him into a room without metal.”

Moira took the folder handed to her and nodded. She scanned over it quickly, but it was just what Li had summarized. There was a concrete room that they could stick a mattress in in the basement.

“I can authorize that. Upstairs doesn’t want to deal with a child right now. They’ve left it up to me. We need to get him through the withdrawal and interview him ASAP. I have some contacts for after. You can move him to room 109B as soon as I get a fresh mattress in.”

The doctor nodded, and started to leave the room, but hesitated. Moira took her opportunity.

“Dr. Li, about earlier-”

“It’s not welcome information in the CIA right about now, is it?” Dr. Li’s eyes were hard, “It was all don’t ask don’t tell.”

There was a pause where Dr. Li looked straight into Moira’s eyes, daring her to say something. Daring her to report her as a mutant, as was protocol.

“I was going to say thank you, Lin.”

The doctor smiled tightly and left the room.


End file.
